While skeptics have a point in doubting tax reform can happen this year, the president, and now Paul Ryan, insist it will. Public support for middle-class tax relief, particularly from the GOP rank and file, works in reform's favor.

President Trump's budget proposal calls for trillions of dollars in government cuts, but Americans' real priority is for Congress first to fix the way it operates and then to debate government funding.

Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement pits climate change concerns against concerns about jobs and the economy. Americans have deep interest in issues on both sides and will probably react along partisan lines.

White Americans became less racially resentful during the Obama years compared with the years before he took office. This change was evident among independents and Democrats, but not among Republicans.

Highly religious Americans give Donald Trump higher job approval ratings than those who are not religious -- an expected pattern, given the relationship between religiosity and partisanship in politics today.